Ultimate Frisbee, colloquially known as Ultimate, has grown in popularity over the past few years. The game of frisbee originally started on a college campus with students throwing a pie tin, but it has grown into a sport with a massive club community and multiple professional leagues.
Ultimate is played on a 120-by-70-yard field with 20-yard end zones. The idea of the game is to catch the frisbee (or disc) in the end zone by passing it between players.
There are two positions, handlers and cutters, and seven players on the field. Handlers are like quarterbacks, and they direct play for the cutters. Cutters are receivers who run around the field to give handlers available passes. Cutters can pass to other cutters or back to handlers. Running with the disc in hand is considered a travel.
A typical offense includes two to three handlers and four to five cutters. The most common offensive formation is the vertical stack, where the cutters line up vertically, usually in the center of the field, and cut one or two at a time for the handlers. Handlers are set upfield from the cutters. In a three-handler offense, one will “set” the stack, essentially telling the cutters where to be and acting as the last resort for the other two handlers.
On defense, the most common types are man-to-man or zone. In both man and zone, someone is always defending the player with the disc. This defender is known as the mark. In man defense, the mark is whoever was defending the player when they got the disc. In a zone, the mark will typically follow the disc.
Typical zones have a mark and a three-person cup formation around the player with the disc, two midfield defenders, and one deep defender that watches for cutters running to the end zone.
Ultimate is a self officiated sport with no referees. Higher level play will occasionally have refs, but that is almost exclusive to professional leagues. Higher level club teams will have observers, who are there to step in if teams cannot agree on a call.
There are three professional leagues in North America. The Ultimate Frisbee Association (UFA) is the men’s league that has 24 teams, 22 in the States and two in Canada. Illinois is represented by the Chicago Union, who play at Northwestern University’s Martin Stadium.
There are two women’s leagues, the Premier Ultimate League (PUL) and the Western Ultimate League (WUL). The PUL has 11 teams in the Midwest and on the East Coast, and theWUL has seven on the West Coast. Illinois does not have a women’s team, but the nearest teams are the Milwaulkee Monarchs and Indianapolis Red.
The WUL competes from late March to mid-May and the PUL competes from early April to early June. The UFA competes from early April to late July.
Illinois has three official adult club leagues. There are three women’s teams, three men’s teams, and eight co-ed or “mixed” teams. These teams compete at regional and national club tournaments. Try-outs for the teams are typically open to the public, and different teams expect different levels of experience, so some are more laid-back than others.
Ultimate is also popular in high school and college athletics, and most larger schools have men’s and women’s teams.
If you know where to look, you can find Ultimate just about anywhere. If you just want to be a fan, professional games are the place to go. If you want to play, there are club teams or community leagues in most cities. But no matter how you want to get involved, there’s a place for everyone in the community.
